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The concept of quality isn't just about profits and losses or beating out your competitors. This is about delivering on a promise, meeting the basic expectations of customers and ensuring PRODUCT safety. However, companies that meet quality standards often reap greater profits and REDUCE losses. Quality standards are a set of good management practices, methods, systems, requirements, or specifications formulated by industry advisory groups to help DEVELOPERS achieve and demonstrate consistent product quality.

Having quality standards in PLACE is important for an organization SINCE it helps the team members stay organized and on task. By eliminating redundancy, unnecessary processes would no longer be carried out, resulting in costs being reduced. Additionally, establishing standards will help all members of the team to be guided in the right direction.

PRODUCT QUALITY is directly impacted by the quality of production processes. Consequently, a quality control manager's duties include inspecting both a company's products and its processes.

• Product quality: The purpose of product quality inspections is to detect defects and assess how CLOSELY a product CONFORMS to requirements specifications. 
• PROCESS quality: The purpose of a process quality inspection is to identify inefficiencies in the production process that waste organization time, slow down the process, or lead to lower-quality products.

Every ORGANIZATION will have its own measure of QUALITY that matters most, from safety to SPEED, compliance to cost. Safety is the most important of all quality measures because, without it, all of the others are meaningless. For consumers to trust us and buy from us, our products must be safe. If the products are not safe, consumers will stop BUYING from us, which can lead to EXPENSIVE litigation. 

The following are some ways to reduce the number of errors and losses in your software product.

• Monitor the progress of the software products regularly.
• Make your code concise and READABLE, clear, and simple to unit test. Simple code leads to fewer bugs and takes less time to fix.
• Having your code BROKEN up into INDEPENDENT MODULES will make it easier for you to test each piece separately. The modularity of your code will make testing easier and less complicated.
• Code comments should be as clear and concise as possible, and you shouldn't rely on them to make code more readable.
• You shouldn't ignore compiler warnings. Compiler warnings indicate code issues that may cause bugs.
• Test, test, and test again! Testing at different stages of the development process can help you catch bugs earlier and fix them more easily than if found later on.
• Having a rushed release and cutting corners could result in more problems for the company and the program. Don't SKIMP on your work instead put best practices into place now and you will avoid costly and time-consuming mistakes later, etc.

The Boundary VALUE analysis, also known as boundary testing, is a software testing technique, in which tests are conducted based on boundary values or between two opposite ends. In this SENSE, the extreme ends such as start to end, LOWER to upper, or maximum to a MINIMUM are called boundary values, and testing such values is called boundary testing.

The testing of all the BRANCHES of a code, which is done at once, is called branch testing. This TECHNIQUE enables every possible branch from every decision point to be executed at least once, ensuring that all REACHABLE code is executed. As part of branch testing, each outcome from a code module is TESTED as a binary outcome, so you must test both True and False outcomes. Branch Testing provides some features that are generally useful for a software project as GIVEN below:

• You are able to validate all the branches in the code.
• This is a non-functional type of testing.
• Using this method, all branches are checked to ensure that they do not cause abnormal behaviour.
• This is a quantitative measure of a program's code coverage, etc.

Generally, a test case consists of a set of conditions, variables, and/or ACTIONS being performed on a system under test to ENSURE it meets its requirements and functions properly. Good test cases INCLUDE:

• Clear OBJECTIVE: Specify the intent and scope of the test.
• Meaningful pass/fail verifications: Specifying what constitutes success and failure and how to determine both.'
• Clear and concise documentation: Prepare standardized formats for your test cases, including unique ID number, descriptions, preconditions, RELATED datasets, and expected outcomes.
• Traceability to requirements: Test cases should be traceable to requirements for a system under test. We need to ensure we test all requirements and changes, and not waste time testing irrelevant components.
• Reusability: Develop test cases that are modular and easy to maintain. It is likely that test cases will change as the system under test evolves over time, but we definitely want to write test cases that are reusable as long as possible.
• Testing of one test case independently of others: Execution of a single test case should not be dependent on other test cases. To create a larger end-to-end test, your independent, modular test cases should be able to be combined into sequential or parallel execution test suites.

When writing TEST cases, there are seven MAIN artifacts that can be considered such as requirement understanding documents, FUNCTIONAL requirement specification, user stories, use cases, ACCEPTANCE criteria, wireframes, and UAT test cases. You should strive to include all relevant artifacts WHENEVER they are applicable to the product we are testing.

Unit testing, functional testing, and integration testing are types of testing PERFORMED as part of Quality Control processes. Furthermore, there are several other types of testing that can contribute to quality control, such as SYSTEM Integration Testing, User Acceptance Testing, Non-Functional Testing, Beta Testing, Regression Testing, Performance Testing, Volume Testing, INSTALLATION Testing, RECOVERY Testing, Load Testing, Stress Testing, and USABILITY Testing.

Software quality control involves two phases, namely the reviewing and testing phase.

• Reviewing Phase: The review phase is a type of static testing or verification process aimed at preventing software defects. This is a process-oriented approach for enhancing the development process PERFORMED without executing programs. There are several review activities WITHIN the software development LIFE cycle process, such as requirements, design, coding, test plan, test cases, and deployment. It is basically a process-level verification to prevent software defects.
• Testing Phase: Testing is a dynamic or validation process that identifies defects in a software application. This is a product-oriented approach to improving software product quality performed with program execution. There are several testing activities within the software development life cycle process, such as unit, integration, system, user acceptance, non-functional, release and maintenance testing. Furthermore, as part of this activity, we perform additional functional and non-functional testing, such as smoke testing, retesting, regression testing, sanity testing, as well as performance testing, load testing, volume testing, STRESS testing, endurance testing to improve the priority (importance of fixing the defect) and severity (impact of the defect) of the developed software product quality.

In Software Quality Control, there are different types of Quality Control Parameters as follows:

• Products: ESSENTIALLY, the Products represent the actual requirements of the client and should be delivered defect-free.
• Processes: Processes are rules that must be followed while testing a Software System or Product in order to ensure the BEST results (product deliverables) are obtained. A set of processes will allow a testing procedure to be performed efficiently so that the full product is tested as per the customer's SPECIFICATIONS without any functional or non-functional inabilities being missed.
• Resources: It is very important to make efficient use of all resources, including team members, tools, and technologies. Depending on the budget of the project, the testing process can either be automated or manually EXECUTED. For manual processes, there ought to be adequate resources within the team to prevent defects or manual errors. On the other hand, automated testing ALSO demands the presence of a technical professional.

Maintaining the quality of the products during production is the responsibility of the quality control SPECIALIST. Software products or services are EVALUATED by quality control specialists using internal specifications and procedures. This PROFESSION REQUIRES a keen eye for detail, excellent communication skills, planning abilities, and problem-solving skills. Also, they must possess logical thinking skills, effective management skills, and interpersonal skills.

The following are some of the ROLES a quality control engineer or specialist must perform:

• DEVELOP, implement, and improve quality control processes and procedures. 
• Ensure that quality control processes are aligned with COMMERCIAL objectives in collaboration with senior managers.
• Prepare comprehensive, well-structured, and detailed test plans and cases.
• Analyze operations from a QC perspective.
• Perform quality control inspections.
• Perform statistical analysis from a QC perspective to identify issues, trends, and defects.
• Foster a culture where employees are empowered to report quality control issues or defects without fear of retribution or blame.
• Consult with managers and TEAM members about inspection results.
• Make sure there is a procedure for removing failed products.
• Keep up with new TESTING strategies and tools, etc.

Software Quality Control has the following advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages:

• Software applications are validated according to the needs and exceptions of the client.
• It is used to identify software defects and prevent the sale of faulty products and services.
• The team's productivity is improved.
• Software development is MADE easier and the quality of the final product is enhanced.
• Enhanced trust in project management and continued development.
• In addition, it reduces re-development and re-work costs, as it is imposed from scratch or at the BEGINNING LEVEL of the development phase.
• It improves customer satisfaction and software efficiency.

Disadvantages:

• Process TESTING is more time-consuming. Consequently, software deployment can be delayed.
• Software validation requires more resources.
• Inspecting products and services costs money, such as the wages paid to inspectors, tests performed in laboratories. An organization faces a major budgeting issue if the software APPLICATION is rejected.
• No one takes responsibility for the quality of their own work.